Building Wireless Community Networks - Softcover

Flickenger, Rob

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0596002041 ISBN 13: 9780596002046

Publisher: O′Reilly, 2001

Synopsis

In Building Wireless Community Networks, author and O'Reilly network administrator Rob Flickenger offers a compelling case for building wireless networks on a local level: They are inexpensive, and they can be implemented and managed by the community using them, whether it's a school, a neighborhood, or a small business. This nuts-and-bolts guide provides all the necessary information for planning a network, getting the necessary components, and understanding protocols that you need to design and implement your network. The wireless Internet infrastructure, also known as Wi-Fi, is based on the 802.11b standard.The book covers Rob's experience with the Sebastopol Community Network (NoCAT), a multi-tiered network that provides wireless access for O'Reilly employees and free Web browsing to anyone in the area who has a Wi-Fi card in his or her computer. He describes his experience in using 802.11b, selecting the appropriate equipment, finding antenna sites, and coping with the general problems of outdoor networking.Building Wireless Community Networks starts off with basic wireless concepts and essential network services, while later chapters focus on specific aspects of building your own wireless networks. The final chapter is a detailed journal of Rob's experiences in building his first community network. He begins with his first attempts at using a wireless card at a conference, covers the real-life experience of trying something new, and ends with notes from the Portland Summit, a national gathering of wireless aficionados.If you want to join the grassroots effort to build freely available wireless Internet infrastructures in your community, this book is invaluable.

About this title

Review

Certain cities--Singapore is one example--have begun to outfit gathering places, like airport lounges and downtown coffee shops, as "hot spots" that are served by wireless Internet antennas. It's possible for anyone with an IEEE 802.11b card in a laptop to sit down in one and have Internet access immediately. The author of Building Wireless Community Networks, Rob Flickenger, thinks this is a great idea. He's written this small, thin volume to explain to readers why wireless networking is a community asset, and to bring them up to speed on the technologies available for creating wireless hot spots. "Community" here means a collection of people, as in a town or neighbourhood.

Wireless networking protocols are complicated, but IEEE 802.11b and the products that have sprung up around it (like Apple's AirPort and similar offerings from Lucent Technologies and Cisco Systems) are pretty easy to set up and integrate into a network. Flickenger's treatment deals with these admirably, but places more emphasis on configuring operating systems (notably Linux) to work as wireless gateways for transient users. The really fun reading has to do with custom antennas, though. He explains--no kidding--how to convert a Pringles potato-chip can into an antenna for wireless networking, and goes into detail on how to work around the challenges posed by topography and manmade obstacles. This is a smart book about one of the most exciting frontiers in computer networking. --David Wall

Topics covered: means of delivering wireless network access (mainly Internet access) to rooms, buildings, communities, and whole geographic regions of up to a few miles in diameter. Design and placement of access points, as well as configuration of network nodes, is covered in detail, as are the legal and political aspects of building a wireless network for general community use.

Review

"A damned good read...Flickenger has done a remarkable job of squeezing in a lot of pertinent and hands-on material in such a small amount of space...." -- Davey Winder, PC Pro, May 2002

A book well worth reading by anyone who is concerned about community access to the Internet. -- Major Keary, Book News, 2002 No 6

An excellent nuts-and-bolts survey of the issues, problems, and technologies that concentrates on 802.11b- based solutions. -- Thom Stark, IBM Developer Works, Jan 2002

By the closing pages if you're not chomping at the bit to go out and build your own 'cantenna,' well, you're probably just not a geek. -- Provo Linux Users Group, Jan 2003

Considering the small size of the reference, Flickenger is
to be congratulated on packing so much in without sacrificing either readability or the plot. -- Davey Winder, kewney.com, Jan 2002

Flickenger provides a blueprint to setting up wireless community networks... -- Computers in Libraries, Feb 2002

Pick up Rob Flickenger's thin but information-dense
Building Wireless Community Networks and you'll
be ready to get on the air. -- Don Marti, Linux Journal, Jan 2002

The perfect do-it-yourself manual for what many think is the future of the non-commercial Net -- NetSurfer Digest, Jan 17 2002

This will give you a great insight of the current status of Wireless Community Networks. -- Erik Bussink, Geneva Wireless Community Network, April 2002

Edition details

• Publisher: O′Reilly
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0596002041
• ISBN 13: 9780596002046
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 144